My father, Syed Fasihuddin, died a
quarter of century ago, on February 21, 1977. With him ended one phase
of my life. And another began. I was a few months away from my nineteenth
birthday when it happened. His influence on me was as profound as a father
can have on a son. During the time he was alive, I couldn’t imagine doing
anything without keeping him in my plans. Despite the deep attachment I
had with him, I was able to survive the shock of his death, even though
for a few months after him, I was wondering whether there was really any
reason for me to live any more. The one quest that obsessed me during that
period was to know where my father had gone. In other words, I wanted to
know whether he got transferred to another world, as the traditional wisdom
would make me believe, or whether he had perished into nothingness, as
my own teenage philosophical understanding influenced by Bertrand Russell
and the likes would lead me to conclude. Prior to the death of my father,
I considered myself an atheist. I had stopped praying for quite sometime
and had quietly concluded on my own that it was primarily the wishful thinking
of some noble men that had led to the creation of traditional religion.
It was a casual conclusion drawn partly under the influence of the forceful
writings of authors like Russell and partly because that view enabled me
to pursue my teenage ambitions with carefree abandon.
My father’s death however forced my
intellect to question the basis of the philosophy, which had earlier influenced
me because I had questioned the roots of the traditional religion. It seemed
to me that the kind of reality my father’s death had thrown across at me
to confront, my Godless world-view was incapable of handling the questions
my mind was raising as a consequence of it. Surprisingly, the line of thinking
I had admired for years for being intellectually superior to the traditional
wisdom all of a sudden seemed completely baseless and bereft of any shred
of sanity in it. It dawned upon me then that I was helped by some intelligent
but misguided intellectuals to build a splendid structure on the foundation
of my desires, which was blown into pieces by the reality of my father’s
death. The only other source to look up to for overcoming my anxiety was
the Qur’an, the book I had hitherto only read to complete the traditional
formality in the Muslim families of reciting its Arabic text once. Thanks
to my teacher’s overwhelming propensity to sleep while I used to read out
the text to him, I was able to conveniently skip many pages without getting
noticed. I had thus not read even the original Arabic text of the Qur’an
from cover to cover. However, when I approached the book with a view
to find answers to the extremely pressing questions that my wretched mind
raised after my father’s death, my spiritual and intellectual satisfaction
was unbelievable. Even my initial attempt at understanding the meanings
of life and death was so richly rewarding that the thirst it created for
more knowledge has not been quenched as yet. In fact, it has only increased.
It is amazing how such a relatively brief text could manage to retain its
freshness for me despite being read over and over again on numerous occasions
in the last twenty-five years. I came to realize that the only reason why
I am getting the kind of response from the Qur’an which many others
complain they don’t get is that I was able to satisfy the most significant
condition the book demands from its reader for getting proper guidance
from it: honest yearning to know the truth. That yearning was forced on
me by my circumstances. It was as if I had no choice but to seek answers
to the pressing questions I was struggling with. Because of that temporary
phase in my life when I was able to completely reject all forms of worldly
ambitions, I was able to make myself fully available to the Qur’an
for guidance, and what I got was -- and still is -- like the unstoppable
flow from the font of Zam Zam, the immense wisdom of the Qur’an.
It is amazing for me to imagine how privileged I have been in getting introduced
to the Qur’anic wisdom despite not deserving it. But then that is
how God’s mercy is boundless.
The truth is that if you approach
the Qur’an with strings of conditions attached to your probing,
you are bound to fail in your quest. However, if you surrender yourself
to that greatest treasure of knowledge unconditionally, its marvellous
wisdom will never disappoint you. I owe my guidance to the Almighty, Who
despite my numerous shortcomings considered me worthy of coming close to
His Book, which is unquestionably the greatest blessing one can pray to
get in this worldly life. I also owe it, even though indirectly, to the
deep attachment I had with my late father, whose death took away from me
the obsessive love of worldly life and thus the way was paved for me to
learn the Qur’an.
May Allah Almighty forgive him and
shower His mercy on him.
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